


The Morning After

by CaptainJimothyCarter



Series: Tumblr Prompt Fics [16]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: A tired Steve, Drabble, F/M, Fluff, He deserves his rest, He's bore the world on his shoulders far too much, He's just a tired, Older Steve, Peggy doesn't believe he's alive and real, Someone give them a hug, Steve you dont' cook bacon barefooted, The poor things are so broken and hurting and so raw, Younger Peggy, post Endgame, tired man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26788192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainJimothyCarter/pseuds/CaptainJimothyCarter
Summary: The morning after Steve returns with a tale of time travel on his lips, Peggy wakes up alone in her bed. She insists it was all an insane dream, caused by the stress of her job. That's what she wants to believe because the idea of believing Steve had been here and now that he's not is too much for her soul to bear right now.She starts to believe it until she smells coffee and breakfast and hears a familiar Irish tune from a man who should be dead.
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Series: Tumblr Prompt Fics [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952281
Comments: 5
Kudos: 38





	The Morning After

The bed was empty. Peggy didn’t need to open her eyes and stretch her arm out to feel that the bed was empty. She could feel it in the way that the covers were arranged, bundled up all on her side with her feet tucked underneath the covers, like how she always slept. Curled up on her side to try to take up as less room as possible.

Her fingers skirted over the opposite pillow and covers, a soft sigh leaving lips. They were cold, only warmed up by the morning sun streaming through the parted curtains.

It was a dream then, wasn’t it? Hallucinated, brought up by the very fact that it was officially four years since _he_ died. Since she’d heard their last conversation being cut off by a watery grave. Since Steve had died. She’d imagined it, then.

She’d imagined Steve appearing outside of her home, holding a bouquet of flowers with a nervous smile on his face. He didn’t even blink when she dropped her teacup and replaced it with her gun. He answered all her questions without hesitation. Their last conversation, a treasured memory, and finally the compass. The compass that went down in his watery grave forever lost to the sea.

They talked. For hours and Steve came up with this ridiculous notion that he was from the future and Howard had a son and how he was part of some team called the Avengers? And the most ridiculous motion of it all was time travel. He’d come here through time travel. If time travel was at all possible, then Howard would’ve figured it out by now, she was sure.

Their talking had dissolved into silence. Into Steve picking her up and cradling her against his chest. To soft dancing between them, that was more swaying than dancing, soft kisses, until they ended up in bed.

Where she was now waking up alone with a heavy heart.

_Come on, Carter. Up you get. You can’t afford to be late and fall apart. Steve’s dead. He’s dead and there’s no changing that. You just had one too many last nights and dreamed of him._

Sighing heavily, Peggy’s eyes opened to find herself face-to-face with that very same compass, she’d dreamed of. It sat right there on her bedside table, withered with age. Rust encasing the outside of it. She picked it up slowly as if touching it was a curse. She swallowed and opened it up, her breath being taken away by the sight of her own photo.

Could it be? That wasn’t a dream, then?

Her answer came in form of a smell. A _warm_ smell filling her home, traveling towards the bedroom. Coffee and…bacon?

Climbing out of bed and putting the compass aside, Peggy wrapped her robe around her frame and padded into the kitchen. There was the backside of a man she’d never thought she’d see again. She knew those shoulders well. The broad muscles she’d spent hours tracing last night, leaving her own marks in his skin that were already healed by now.

Powerful muscles that had cradled her as if she was made of glass and lovingly calmed her down as she cried into his chest, trying to tell him in between sobs how upset she was at him. Yet underneath it, she understood, and seeing the pain on Steve’s face about how he was holding that guilt and pain on himself told her all she needed to know.

He’d suffered just as much.

He must’ve heard her too because Steve didn’t react when she wrapped her arms around his backside, holding him tightly to her. He chuckled warmly and flipped the burner off, holding one hand to his frame.

“Good morning to you too,” he mused. “I hoped I could’ve surprised you with breakfast in bed.”

Turning around in her arms, he wasn’t too stunned to see the tears in her eyes. His own shimmered a recollection at the idea of how lucky he was to be standing barefooted in her kitchen with the smell of breakfast wafting around him.

He wrapped his arms around her, pressing her face into his chest. The pad of his thumb gently wiped away the tears, humming a song he’d remembered her singing during the war. It only made her sob harder as they rocked side to side.

“You’re home,” she whispered into his undershirt, her fingertips pulling the fabric taut to _breathe_ him in.

Steve’s fingertips tilted her face up to press their lips together in a tender kiss, whispering against her lips. “I’m home.”

**Author's Note:**

> This KILLED my soul. I love them so much.


End file.
